Archive for the ‘soundtrack’ Category

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Halloween Horrortracks

Friday, October 28th, 2011

I love horror movies.

I also love their soundtracks. It always amazes me how many soundtracks to great (and…not so great) horror movies end up going out of print! A well-crafted horror movie soundtrack can be just as memorable and creepy as the movie’s villain. Think of a movie like Jaws or Halloween, those movies are scarier because of their amazing scores! It’s a shame that so many soundtracks to lesser horror films have become lost over the years.

While I’ll be the first to admit that none of the soundtracks I’m featuring tonight can hold a candle to the films I just mentioned, they are still worth mentioning and might serve as great background music to your Halloween party, if nothing else.

 

The Fog


Matthew Ghost Story
Main Title Theme
Walk to the Lighthouse
Rocks at Drake’s Bay
The Fog
Antonio Bay
Tommy Tells of Ghost Ships
Reel 9
Can anyone else name a director who also scores most of his or her films? I sure can’t think of one – John Carpenter walks alone. With awesome keyboards.

For a long time John Carpenter’s scores were nearly impossible to find, but over the past few years many of his best soundtracks have found their way back into release. Today you can easily pick up the scores to such classics as They Live, Prince of Darkness, Escape from New York,  and the first three Halloween films, complete and uncut! The soundtrack to The Fog was available on CD for a while too, but for some reason that version has lapsed back out of print. It’s a shame. It may lack some of the hooks or melodies that made Carpenter’s other scores so memorable, but I still enjoy it immensely. It has a atmospheric, brooding feeling that perfectly encompasses the slow dreadful feeling you get from the film as you see the zombie-filled fog slowly roll its way across the town, killing anyone who gets in its path. I haven’t seen The Fog since I was in high school, I really have to re-visit this movie. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.

Just avoid that remake. Ugh.

It’s Alive 2 (AKA It Lives Again)


Main Title
Birth Traumas
Lamentation
Savage Trilogy
Nightmares
Beautiful and Bizarre
Revulsion
Basement Nursery
Evil Evolving
Living With Fear
Stalking The Infants
Climax
It Lives Again, the sequel to the only movie that I know of that put my mother into shock while she saw it (true story – Hi mom!).

Despite what my mother might tell you otherwise, the original It’s Alive is an awesome movie, and not just for its schlock and shock value. For a movie about a mutant killer baby, there’s a lot going on there! It talks about women’s rights, the environment, government corruption, prejudice, and tabloid journalism. Deep shit!

The movie was directed by Larry Cohen, a twisted genius of a filmmaker who also made The Stuff, a movie about killer ice cream, and Q: The Winged Serpent, an AMAZING movie about a giant winged serpent that lives on top of the Chrysler Building and eats people. Seek those movies out, they will change your life.

The score for It’s Alive 2 is just a slightly modified version of the score to the original film, which was composed by the legendary composer Bernard Herrmann. During his illustrious career, Herrmann composed the scores to countless classics, including Citizen Kane, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Cape Fear, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jason and the Argonauts and Sisters. The last movie to feature one of his scores to come out before he died was It’s Alive, his actual last score was for Taxi Driver, but that didn’t come out until after he passed away.

Of the three scores I’m featuring here tonight, this is my favorite. Just like a great horror film, it’s filled with mystery, intrigue and the occasional jump scare. I also love its subtle use of electronic instruments, something that Herrmann was known for as far back as the 1960s.

This recording sounds amazing too, because until about three hours ago, my copy was sealed and had never been played.

Killer babies!

 

Leviathan


Underwater Camp
Decompression
Discovery
One of Us
The Body Within
Escape Bubbles
Can We Fix It
Situation Under Control
It’s Growing
Too Hot
A Lot Better
In 1989, three underwater-themed horror/sci-fi movies were released in American theaters; The Abyss, Deep Star Six, and Leviathan. Of the three, The Abyss is rightfully the most remembered. It was directed by James Cameron, had a huge budget with jaw-dropping and revolutionary special effects, and a touching story that managed to simultaneously deal with small, interpersonal relationships as well as the dangers of the military-industrial complex and cold war paranoia (at least it did in the Director’s Cut).

Deep Star Six, on the other hand, is a horrendously awful underwater monster film by Sean S. Cunningham, the director of Friday The 13th. It’s only redeeming quality is it’s incredibly bizarre cast, which includes Nia Peeples from Fame, Miguel Ferrrer (The Stand) and that dude from B.J. and The Bear. Don’t see it.

Somewhere in between (although admittedly closer to Deep Star Six) is Leviathan.

Leviathan certainly isn’t a good film by any means, but it’s not horrible, and is definitely entertaining. One thing is for sure, it has a pretty stellar cast of B-movie stars and characters actors, including Peter Weller (fucking Robocop!) Ernie Hudson (a fucking Ghostbuster!), Richard Crenna (fucking Trautman from Rambo!) and Daniel Stern (fucking….Daniel Stern! Dude was in Home Alone! And CHUD!).

It also probably helped that the film had a halfway decent director in George P. Costomas, a work-for-hire director who churned out entertaining films of questionable quality during the 80s (Cobra, First Blood: Part II, Of Unknown Origin) before somehow scoring a gig directing Tombstone in 1993 (although Kurt Russell would later claim he ghost-directed that film). The man knew how to work with a limited budget, and manages to make the most out of the rather silly practical monster effects throughout the film.

The plot of Leviathan is almost identical to that of Alien, so it’s probably more than just coincidence that they hired the composer of Alien, Jerry Goldsmith, to do the film’s score. It’s not the most creepy of scores, but it does feature whale songs! So hey…that’s something I guess.

Random thought: Wouldn’t it be fucking incredible if the heavy metal band Mastodon made their album Leviathan to be in sync with this movie? Hey, you potheads out there, go find that out for me.

By the way, the babies in the It’s Alive movies could totally fuck up the monster in Leviathan.

Posted in Complete Albums, soundtrack | 2 Comments »

Literally a Virtuosity of a Soundtrack

Sunday, October 2nd, 2011

This blog has gotten more hits in the past two days than it usually does in two weeks. I guess sometimes even someone like me can write something that can really connect with what people are thinking and be relevant with current trends and topics.

Other times I share out-of-print songs from obscure soundtracks that no one cares about. Tonight’s post is the latter.

Selections From the Virtuosity Original Motion Picture Soundtrack


For those of you who don’t remember/successfully forgot, Virtuosity was a mid-90s action/sci-fi flick starring Denzel Washington as an ex-cop who is released from prison to hunt down a robotic serial killer played by Russell Crowe. The movie also stars Kelly Lynch (proving that you can go downhill from Roadhouse) and William Fichtner, because he’s in one out of ten movies ever made.

It was directed by Brett Leonard, the only director I can think of who is from my hometown of Toledo, Ohio. Leonard’s other directorial efforts include The Lawnmower Man, Hideway and Man-Thing. He also directed Highlander: The Source, which many consider to be even worse than Highlander II: The Quickening. That’s a fucking accomplishment.

He also directed Feed, a horror movie about a serial-killer who gets off on feeding his victims to death. It’s set in Toledo, Ohio and sounds like the most accurate depiction of my hometown that has ever been committed to film.

Anyways, while Virtuosity is a slightly-below mediocre film, it does have a slightly-above mediocre soundtrack that is now out-of-print. You can get some of the songs on albums by the artists, but most of the tracks remain hard-to-find and rare, and those are the ones I’ll be featuring tonight. If you like mid-90s dance/alt-rock then you might find some tracks here you’ll like.

A quick little disclaimer/cop-out: I know very little about all of the bands featured tonight. So if I make any mistakes, glaring omissions of facts that should be mentioned, I apologize. I’m battling a pretty wicked cold at the moment and I’m really too damn tired to research that much right now.

The Heads (Featuring Deborah Harry)
No Talking Just Head
The Heads are everyone in Talking Heads except David Byrne, created when they wanted to reunite but Byrne refused. They only released one album, and this is the title track from it. Other vocalists contributed to the album, including Richard Hell, Gordon Gano and Andy Partridge. I heard the album sucked, but I do love this track. Any of you heard it and want to share? It’s out of print at the moment.

The Worldbeaters and Peter Gabriel
Party Man
I have absolutely no freakin’ clue as to who The Worldbeaters are. If anyone can shed some light on them for me I would appreciate it. Since they apparently never released anything other than this song, I suspect they do not exist and that it is a pseudonym of Peter Gabriel and whomever he was working with while he recorded this song (which may be Tori Amos, she co-wrote this tune). This is one of the best tracks on the soundtrack, although cool, the mellow vibe totally does not fit in with the rest of the album.

Dig
Hu Hu Hu (Danny Saber Remix)
Dig was an also-ran alt-rock band from the mid-90s. I didn’t remember them at all until I did my research for this article and re-discovered their sole kinda-hit “Believe.” According to Discogs this remix is by Danny Saber (the linear notes for this soundtrack are annoyingly vague and don’t even list that most of the tracks are remixes). That makes sense, because it sounds like nothing else I looked up by the band. Not bad, extremely 90s sounding.

Live
White, Discussion (Sam Sever Remix)
Hey Live! Remember Live? Yeah, I almost forget them too. I blame Secret Samadhi, goddamn that album was dogshit. This very odd remix is not as good as the original version but it is interesting in a “hey let’s just add some beats and a rap to a rock song and call it a remix” kind of way.

Fatima Mansions
The Loyaliser (Juno Reactor Remix)
Okay, I had never heard of this band until about five minutes ago, when I looked up their Wikipedia page and discovered the following:

  • They made the UK Top 10 with a reworked cover of “(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.”
  • They opened for U2 but were almost booed off stage for insulting the pope.
  • John Peel loved them.

Judging from what I’ve found on YouTube, they appear to have been absolutely fucking nuts. I think I just discovered another band to obsess over, like I needed another one of those. Oh well, I’m assuming I can get their stuff fairly cheap used.

Also, if you like this remix, check out the original version. It’s even better.

Traci Lords
Fallen Angel (Paul Oakenfold Remix)
Traci Lords is an amazing singer and her album 1,000 Fires is a great example of mid-90s Hi-NRG dance music. It’s a shame she never put out another record. Not only that, it’s out of print too! Looks like I might need to feature it sometime.

Londonbeat
Build It With Love
If right now you are wondering “Who the fuck are Londonbeat?” then click here.

That song will probably be stuck in your head for the next few hours/days/weeks. Sorry about that.

I have no idea how much this remix differs from the original version, even in its remixed form it’s incredibly dated and silly. I bet it was a banger in the gay clubs at the time though.

India and Masters At Work
I Can’t Get No Sleep
India (the woman singing on this track – not the country) has an amazing voice, but that can’t save this track from being so forgettable an elephant would have a hard time remembering it. In fact, whenever I see the that song title I get “Insomnia” by Faithless stuck in my head instead. It’s more upbeat 90s dance, and fine for what it is. Just not my style at all.

That’s it for this one. In case you were wondering, the in-print tracks from this soundtrack are:
Black Grape – A Big Day In The North
Tricky – Abbaon Fat Tracks
William Orbit – Into The Paradise
Samurai – Juno Reactor (AWESOME track, buy it)
Lords Of Acid – Young Boys

I might get another post out on Monday, and expect my full report on the Nevermind 4LP set this Tuesday night!

Oh, and if you’re one of my new readers and want constant updates about my stupid life/listening habits, be sure to follow me on Twitter.

Posted in Dig, Fatima Mansions, Live (The Band), Masters At Work, Peter Gabriel, soundtrack, The Heads, Tori Amos, Traci Lords | 3 Comments »

Check out my Thing…soundtrack

Monday, July 18th, 2011

Ennio Morricone – The Thing: Music From The Motion Picture
Humanity (Part 1)
Shape
Contamination
Bestiality
Solitude
Eternity
Wait
Humanity (Part 2)
Sterilization
 Despair
 The Thing remains the only horror film directed by John Carpenter that he did not also contribute the score to. But I think it’s fair to say that he found a good replacement in Ennio Morricone.

Morricone is a god of film scores, having written approximately 800 billion in his 82 years (Okay, so it’s more like 500. Still, that’s fucking insane). Even if you don’t know the name Morricone, you are familar with his work. He did this. And this. Also this and this. Some notable Hollywood films he did the scores for include Brian DePalma’s The Untouchables and…Exorcist II: The Heretic.

Hey, they can’t all be bangers.

Morricone’s score to The Thing perfectly captures the claustrophobic feel of the film, although it doesn’t work that well as an independent piece of music. Most of it is so quiet that it is barely audible, and just when your ears have become accustomed to the muted music, it explodes in a menagerie of plucking strings and bombastic horns.

After a while, the soundtrack itself becomes kind of scary, as you wait for it to jolt your system with another sonic blast. While it’s not easy listening, I imagine it would be a great way to liven up your day-to-day activities. Work in a cubicle? Play this on headphones and you’ll have the most intense numbers-crunching session of all time. Clean your home while listening to it, and be prepared for your humdrum dusting to turn into a terrifying battle against microscopic dust aliens.  Listen to it at the bus stop and you’ll slowly start to suspect that everyone around you is really an alien shapeshifter – well, that might happen at the bus stop no matter what you’re listening to, but you get my point.

A word on the technical aspect of this rip. Like I said before, this is a QUIET soundtrack. One limitation of vinyl is that quiet music can be overcome with surface noise, and that was the case with my original recording.

To make it a little more listenable, I cleaned it up using Audacity’s noise removal tool. While the quiet parts are crystal clear now, some of the loudest parts of the score have some very slight distortion. I still think it’s more than a fair trade-off though, considering the ration of quiet-to-loud parts. And besides, I wasn’t about to chuck out 40-plus bucks for a used CD copy.

Posted in Ennio Morricone, soundtrack, Uncategorized | 5 Comments »

Rick Wakeman’s Burning Sensation

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

Okay, so I wrote this huge post and THEN I found out that the album is finally available on CD in the states. I don’t like to post in-print music, so I’m putting up one track from the soundtrack as a teaser. If you like it, go buy the rest.

 

Rick Wakeman – The Burning Soundtrack
Variations on the Fire

If you’ve never heard of The Burning, don’t be surprised. Although the plot has some curve balls, it’s still your typical, forgettable 80s slasher flick, complete with horny teens in the woods and special effects by fake blood guru Tom Savini. It’s pretty much remembered today for two things; This scene (WARNING: incredibly graphic violence) and the people who were involved in the production.

The Burning was produced by Harvey Weinstein and co-written by his brother Bob. That’s right, The Burning is the very first Miramax Film – the studio that later brought you Pulp Fiction, Shakespeare in Love and Clerks.

You think that’s nuts? Just wait, it gets even odder. Bob Weinstein didn’t write the script to The Burning by himself. Oh no, a flick of this high quality requires some serious collaboration. For help he turned to a man named Peter Lawrence, who later went on to write for such classics of 80s animation as Thundercats and Silverhawks. So we’re just one degree of separation between Cropsy (the killer of The Burning) and Lionel.

It’s a small world.

But that’s not even the most whacked out bit. A dude by the name of Brad Grey also worked on the story of The Burning. He later went on to serve as an executive producer for The Sopranos as well as The Departed. Now he’s the Chairman and CEO of Paramount Pictures!

So if you’re ever at a horrorcon, be nice to the guys who wrote the piece of shit indie slasher flick playing at 4PM on a Sunday, because you never know.

The talent in front of the camera is pretty forgettable, except for a supporting role by Jason Alexander and a super-quick bit part by Holly Hunter (seriously, if you blink you will miss her).

About the only person who worked on The Burning who didn’t go on to fame and fortune was the director and co-writer, Tony Maylam. He was primarily a documentary filmmaker before the release of The Burning, and he returned to that shortly thereafter. One notable exception being Split Second, a great/awful piece of 90s sci-fi/horror shit with Rutger Hauer and Kim Cattrall.

But give Maylam some credit, it is because of him that we have this stellar soundtrack by Rick Wakeman from Yes. The two previously worked together on White Rock, a 1977 film about the Winter Olympics. It was that relationship that led to Wakeman coming in to do the score for The Burning. 

I would have loved to sit in on the phone call Maylam made to Wakeman that convinced him to do the score to The Burning:

Maylam: Hey Rick, I might have some more soundtrack work for you if you’re interested.
Rick: Oh yeah? You doing a documentary on the summer Olympics?
Maylam: Not exactly, it’s a slasher film called The Burning. It’s about horribly burned camp groundskeeper who murders teenagers with a pair of hilariously large garden shears.
Wakeman: …can I work in some “shear terror/sheer terror” puns into the track listing?
Maylam: Sure thing!
Wakeman: I’m in! I’ll plug in 50 synthesizers and get to work immediately!

The first side of the LP is labeled as “The Wakeman Variations,” so I don’t think it’s a straight-up recording of the actual score. That half works better as a standalone recording, while the second, with its diversions into instrumental pop-rock and even some banjo-country jamming, are probably only of interest to fans of the film.

As I said before, the full soundtrack is now available in America for a pretty fair price. If you like Rick Wakeman or keyboard-fueled scores ala Tangerine Dream or John Carpenter, I suggest checking it out.

Posted in Rick Wakeman, soundtrack | 3 Comments »

Because 66.5 Days is a Shitty Name for a Movie

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

Thanks everyone for the blog suggestions, as you may notice, the blogroll to the right has been vastly updated and improved tremendously.

And thanks to everyone who recommended Burning The Ground. Now I have blog envy.

John Taylor
I Do What I Do…(Theme For 9 1/2 Weeks) (Film Mix)
I Do What I Do…(Theme For 9 1/2 Weeks) (Extended Club Mix)
Jazz
“I Do What I Do…(Theme For 9 1/2 Weeks)” was nominated for a Razzie (the “awards” for the worst in film) when it came out. And sure, this song isn’t a classic, but worst song from a movie in 1986? It’s not even close. I just think that they wanted to shit all over John Taylor (the bass player from Duran Duran, by the way) because they were jealous of his fabulous hair.

In case you were wondering, the “winner” that year was Prince’s “Love Or Money” from Under The Cherry Moon, while the other nominees included George Harrison’s “Shanghai Surprise” from Shanghai Surprise, “Life in a Looking Glass by Henry Mancini for That’s Life! and Thomas Dolby’s “Howard The Duck” from…Howard The Duck (duh, although wouldn’t have it been awesome if that song was from Maximum Overdrive?).

Okay, first of all, “Howard The Duck” is an awesome track from an even more awesome movie (that’s right, I said it) so the Razzies can go fuck themselves based on that alone.

Secondly, I do recall that Michael Mann’s Manhunter (wow, when you say it like that it sounds really weird) came out that year, and that soundtrack was more than worthy of a Razzie or twenty. Other songs that should have been up for nomination include any non-Queen track from the Iron Eagle soundtrack and any song that was in The Golden Child strictly because of guilt by association.

Anyways, these remixes (as well as the B-side “Jazz”) are from two 12″ singles for the song. I enjoy them in all their cheesy splendor. If nothing else they’re certainly better than the film 9 1/2 Weeks.

Then again, most things are.

Nitzer Ebb
I Give To You (Wilder Mix Full Version)
I Give To You (Elemental)
I Give To You (Pestilence)
Holy shit on a dumptruck this is a great track. Why don’t I own more Nitzer Ebb? I need to fix that. These are all from a 12″ single.

Posted in B-sides, Duran Duran, John Taylor, Nitzer Ebb, remixes, soundtrack | 9 Comments »

Fish Story Will Save The World

Thursday, April 14th, 2011

I’m as big a movie geek as I am a music geek, so great movies about music usually move me in ways that few other films can.

However, there are very few great films about music. Almost Famous. High Fidelity. Purple Rain (yeah, Purple fucking Rain, you got a problem with that?) are all excellent movies about music because they show the connections that people make with the music they love and create. Those films show the power of music: the power that it has to move people so much that it can actually change their lives for the better.

When a movie can do that it’s a beautiful thing. However, Fish Story, a 2009 Japanese film, manages to go above and beyond those films. It shows music can save the fucking world.

The film starts in the year 2012. In just a matter of hours, a comet will smash into Earth, destroying all life. Tokyo is deserted, except for one small record store. Inside, the clerk tells his sole customer (and a cranky old man eager for the end of the world) about “Fish Story.” It’s the first punk rock song, recorded by a Japanese band called Gekirin a year before the Sex Pistols formed. It didn’t sell, so no one has heard of it. The song is important though, the clerk says, because it’s going to save the world.

From there the movie jumps to 1982, where some college students discuss the mysterious song and a strange urban legend that’s associated with it. Then the movie shifts to 2009, where a cruise ship is taken hostage by a group of doomsday cultists. After that, the movie changes time periods again, this time going to 1975, where we are treated to the story of Gekirn and how Fish Story came to be.

Oh, and then the song saves the world.

I don’t feel like that’s a spoiler – as another review I read of Fish Story pointed out, no one is going to make a movie about how a song doesn’t save the world. The joy in Fish Story comes not from finding out if the song saves the world, but from finding out how the song saves the world. No, the record doesn’t magically transform into a Gundam robot and smash the comet into the sun (although that would be awesome), it’s a little more complex than that. But that’s all I’m going to say. The less you know about Fish Story the better. Its initial charm comes in how unexpected it is. But it still holds up on repeated viewings just by being so damn fun.

Although the idea of Fish Story is more than a little silly, its conceit is not. At its heart, Fish Story is about how music can connect with people and change their lives in unexpected and amazing ways. It shows how music can give us courage and hope, and challenge us to make ourselves and those around us better. It shows how a song, a stupid little song that almost no one in the world knows about, can drastically affect and change for the better the lives of people who have never even heard it. And when you think of it like that, it’s not hard to imagine that a song could, somehow, actually save the world someday.

It’s a brilliant, hilarious, heart-warming and intelligent movie. So, of course, it’s not available in America. But it was released in the UK, so if you live there you should run out and buy it right now. If you’re American (or in any other county for that matter) and have an all-region DVD player I enthusiastically recommend that you pick up that version. You can find it on Amazon and on Yes Asia. And if you’re looking for a cheap all-region DVD player, I recommend this one.

And if you’re wondering what a song that saves the world sounds like then hey, lookie here!

Gekirin
FISH STORY
FISH STORY (Silence 1975 Version)
Nothing
Nothing (Producer’s Version)
Kazuyoshi Saito
FISH STORY (Alternate Version)
Summer Days
When you make a movie about a song that saves the world, that song in question is damn good. Thankfully, “Fish Story” is a great track,  mimicking the sound of mid-70s punk rock while still sounding a little fresh and original at the same time. A composer/musician by the name of Kazuyoshi Saito wrote the track, although the fictional band Gekirin performs it in the movie. The version by Gekirin and a version by Saito are are included on the soundtrack, as is a version that has a minute of dead silence instead of a guitar solo. Why is there a minute of silence in the middle of the song? Watch the movie to find out.

“Nothing” is another song that Gekirin performs in the movie, and while it doesn’t save the world, it’s still a quality tune. The “Producer’s Version” is a joke, a version of the song slowed down for mainstream appeal, complete with organ overdubs. I have to admit that I find its cheesiness endearing for some odd reason.

“Summer Days” is a mellow acoustic rock song that plays over the end credits. It’s a chill track, but still good. I don’t think it will ever save the world, but who knows?

Finally,don’t forget that Japan is still struggling to recover from the devasting effects of the earthquake and tsunami. While you’re enjoying this amazing collection of Japanese rock from a Japanese movie, why don’t you head over to the Red Cross’ donation page and help them out?

Want something in return for your troubles? The Songs For Japan compilation is a good collection of pop music for 10 bucks, all of which goes to to help Japanese relief efforts.

Like “chiptune” electronic music and want to help? Check out Chip In: Japan!

Finally, do you like drum and bass and want to help, but are kind of broke? Then go to Pendulum’s website and buy “Ransom” for a British pound, all profits go to the relief efforts.

Whatever you do, give! You don’t need an awesome punk rock song to save the world.

Although sometimes it helps.

Posted in Gekirin, Kazuyoshi Saito, soundtrack | 19 Comments »

A blog post light years beyond your imagination!

Friday, January 14th, 2011

Man, you all gave me a lot of great guesses what the stupidest movie of 1983 was! And while none of you were right (okay, maybe you two who guessed Superman III were) I’m going to go out on a limb and say that neither was I. But here’s the soundtrack to one of the stupidest movies of 1983

Krull Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
After doing a bit of research I’ll no longer claim that Krull was the stupidest movie of 1983. That was the year when both Amityville 3-D and Jaws 3-D were released, and they are both some of the most epically stupid films ever made.

But before I defend the movie I previously bashed, I should probably tell you all what its about, since I’m willing to bet that most of you have barely even heard of the flick.

Krull is a bizarre sci-fi/fantasy hybrid set on the semi-magical world of…Krull. A young princess and prince are about to wed, but on the day of their wedding an evil space alien referred to only as The Beast crashes the party and kidnaps the bride-to-be, hoping to make her his own. Now its up to the prince, with his awesome boomerang of death called the Glave,  to rescue her! It’s just like Super Mario Bros. but with less magic mushrooms. On his quest to rescue her, the prince and his merry band of cannon fodder encounter one calamity after another, including surprise quicksand, shapeshiting demons and seemingly endless armies of evil cyborgs with lasers. In the end, the prince and the princess literally defeat The Beast with the power of love and live happily ever after.

No, that’s not a spoiler, did you really think he’d fail?

1983 saw a lot of sci-fi/fantasy combos, and Krull isn’t even the stupidest one of them. There was the atrocious rotoscroped monstrosity Fire And Ice; the straight-to-video scholckfest of Deathstalker; and  the notoriously bad prehistoric/sci-fi abomination Yor, the Hunter from the Future.

But why so many sci-fi/fantasy mashups? Just think about it.

It’s 1983, Star Wars is tearing up all box office records. What’s another big hit? Conan The Barbarian. The hacks of Hollywood (and Italy, in the case of Yor) must have collectively thought “Man, if Conan is big and Star Wars is huge then if we combine them we’ll be unstoppable!”

Of course, they all bombed epically, Krull included.

And yeah,  Krull is big stupid bomb, but its a really fun big stupid bomb! While a lot of these flicks are obvious rush jobs designed to make a quick buck, you can at least say that a lot of heart went into Krull. The sets are gorgeous, the action not half-bad, and lot of the actors (including Liam Neeson and Robbie Coltrane -who is dubbed) make the most of the corny material.

More on topic, it also has a great score by James Horner! Its so great that he blatantly stole portions of it while doing the score to Aliens a few years later. Listen to the last few tracks, and you will totally hear the finale to Aliens. Aside from (or perhaps because of) that, it’s a pretty great score, very heroic.

Tonight I am sharing a rip of the vinyl soundtrack to Krull. This is not the complete score. That is only available on a two-disc CD set that costs a bloody fortune now. And, I’m sorry, while I love Krull, I don’t love it that much.

Enjoy it. Listen to it while mountain climbing or something.

Posted in Complete Albums, soundtrack | 8 Comments »

Drew Barrymore could kick The Prodigy’s Ass

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Its going to be another week of weird/stupid/bizarre soundtrack selections at Lost Turntable! I know they’re everyone’s favorite. And by “everyone” I mean the copyright police. So get them fast.

Firestarter Original Motion Picture Soundtrack – Tangerine Dream
Crystal Voice
The Run
Testlab
Charly The Kid
Escaping Point
Rainbirds Move
Burning Force
Between Realities
Shop Territory
Flash Final
Firestarter was by far the best movie from 1984 about a pyrokenetic pre-teen girl. It starts Drew Barrymore as the title character, who is on the run with her father from The Shop, a covert government agency whose experiments gave both Drew’s father and mother psychic powers that she somehow inherited. Its about as silly as it sounds, but it has its appeal, mostly because its fucking BRUTAL. The dad has mind control powers that he uses to force people to commit suicide, and at the end of the movie Drew unleashes hell (almost literally), setting about what seems like half of the greater New England area in the process. Its pretty epic. The effects of people getting set ablaze are pretty excellent, and I still don’t know how they engineered some of the scenes where you see people get lit up and fly 50 feet in the air.

While Not as blazingly amazing as that finale, the soundtrack to Firestarter is pretty good. It’s by no means Tangerine Dream’s best, Risky Business, Legend, and even Flashpoint are better, but its still great ambient music. Listen to it while meditating, or to maybe help develop your psychic powers.

Later this week I will be posting the soundtrack to the dumbest movie of 1983. A no-prize to the first person who guesses what that is.

Posted in soundtrack, Tangerine Dream | 4 Comments »

Dystopian Soundtracks of Future Past

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

I’ve been complaining a lot lately (Just lately? Shut up. Shit, I’m talking to myself). so maybe its time to share some good news.

I got a new turntable! And it’s AWESOME.

For those who want the specifics, it’s a Stanton SR-80. It’s a direct-drive model with a bunch of bells and whistles I’ll never use, and a straight-arm as opposed to a curved one. Now, I know straight arms are worse for records, but they also cut down on skipping, so it’s worth it for me. Besides, I usually only listen to a record a couple times at the most before I record it. After that I really never listen to it again unless I find a mistake with the recording.

But most importantly, it sounds AMAZING. No RF interference, no varying speed due to a worn down belt, no motor noise, no hissing, no nothing. Just pure, beautiful music. One of the problems with my last turntable was interference, it was even a problem after I got an external pre-amp. When it wasn’t radio stations busting through my audio signal, it was just annoying white noise, ruining any quiet moments a record had. That’s why I wasn’t able to record this album until now.

Edgar Froese – Kamikaze 1989
I know very little about this album and movie. Let’s get the easy shit out of the way. For those of you who aren’t retarded  New Ave/Ambient fans (and why aren’t you?!?!) Edgar Froese is the sole continuous member of Tangerine Dream, a group that started out as a Krautrock band before slowly morphing into electronic/ambient mellowness, but in the best way possible. You probably know Tangerine Dream like I do, from their soundtracks, because they’ve done a shitload. Near Dark, Legend, Thief, Sorcerer, Risky Business, Firestarter and about a billion other flicks all feature scores by the German keyboard fanatics.

Oddly enough, I’m pretty sure that this is the only soundtrack that Froese created under his own name. Like I said, I know very little about this movie. It is apparently not very good if this incredibly negative review is to be believed and the only thing worth mentioning about it is that it was the last film to feature the legendary German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died the same year it came out. It’s a dystopian sci-fi fantasy that takes place in the far off future of 1989 (it was made in 1982). And since everyone knew in 1982 that the future was synthesizers, it must have made sense to get Froese to do the score.

If the movie does indeed suck that’s a damn shame, because the soundtrack is pretty good as ambient electronic music goes. Sure, there’ s not always a lot to it, but it is supposed to be background music after all. I’ve always had a soft spot for ambient music, I don’t know why. It really goes against everything I usually like in music (fast beats, high energy). Maybe it’s because everything that I do while listening to ambient music sounds incredibly important and mysterious. Right now I’m listening to Tangerine Dreams’ soundtrack to Sorcerer, and it really gives the imprssion that the shit I’m typing is totally fucking epic.

Anyways, if you like Tangerine Dream type stuff you’ll dig this. If not, avoid it.

Posted in Complete Albums, Edgar Froese, soundtrack | 2 Comments »

Orbital and such. Look, It’s 1:30 AM and I had a shitty weekend, I don’t always need to give you a witty title.

Monday, September 27th, 2010

You know what sucks? Many many things.

Oh, you want something specific? Okay, iTunes 10. I had to upgrade to that abomination when I got my new Shuffle, but holy fuck and a half, it’s a disgusting looking resource hog that makes navigating my freakishly huge music collection very difficult. Shit snags all the time. So don’t get that shit unless you have to. And even then, try to avoid it.

Orbital
Nothing Left (Tsunami One Remix)
Nothing Left (Way Out West Remix)
Much Ado About Nothing Left
Nothing Left Out
These four remixes feature Allison Goldfrapp. I interviewed her once for a magazine article – and that’s all I’m going to say about her. These are from a 12” promo single

Band Of The Hand Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Someone who is a glutten for bad Bob Dylan asked for this to be re-upped. Good luck with this one man.

Lori Carson
Fall In The Light
From the soundtrack to Strange Days. Another repost. I’m trying to up my karma. Maybe that’s what I need.

Posted in Orbital, soundtrack | 3 Comments »

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